Giving Life an Assist

Baseball fans revel in statistics, but until recently probably only a handful knew that the record for the most assists by a second baseman in a game is 12. It is a rare event--much rarer than a perfect game, for example. In more than a century of baseball only six second basemen have made 12 assists in a game.

John (Monte) Ward was the first. He did it while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1892. It wasn’t done again for 64 years, until Jim Gilliam of the Brooklyns had 12 assists in a game in 1956. Since then, Don Money of the Milwaukee Brewers tied the record in 1977, and Ryne Sandberg of the Chicago Cubs had a 12-assist game in 1983.

So what should one make of the fact that two weeks into the 1985 season the record has been tied not once but twice? Glenn Hubbard of the Atlanta Braves had 12 assists on April 14, and Juan Samuel of the Philadelphia Phillies had 12 assists six days later. It happened four times in 91 years, and twice in less than a week.

Science is based on the premise that the world is regular somehow or other, that it follows certain laws and patterns, which scientists try to uncover. But what law or pattern can there be in the way 12-assist games by second basemen are sprinkled through the thousands of baseball games played?

Baseball and life are more haphazard than science, which makes them interesting--and unpredictable.